On the consequences of the Peyton Manning signing, the realities of the NFL, and a fan's ulterior dream deferred

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When we last left our benevolent hero, he was talking and smiling about his "great day" in freezing Foxboro. He had met a 20-year-old with a brain tumor that morning, and it had made his day, and, oh yeah, the Denver Broncos lost by 35 points and their season was over. John Elway was standing in the middle of the locker room, raving to me about Tom Brady.

And in case you haven't been following ESPN's O.J.-level chase of John Elway's white mini-van since — and it's hard not to, even with, you know, actual sports on — it's a great day to be a Denver Broncos fan. Which I am, and will continue to be, except that Tim Tebow was just so... nice.

He's been hanging around my adopted town of L.A. this off-season, our hero has, most notably eating chicken pillard and fettucine bolognese with Taylor Swift. But when he's not out with friends or visiting a school or dressing up for some generic Hollywood event, he's actually been going through four-hour-a-day tutoring sessions with UCLA's offensive coordinator. Tim Tebow, NFL starting quarterback, had been learning how to throw the ball. It might be hopeless, but isn't the whole idea of Tim Tebow to hope?

Football is less about ideas and feelings than any other sport, of course. That other nice Christian kid who came along this winter? Felt good. Especially for the half of the country that didn't get to watch Tebow in the pre-game warm-ups, practicing his jukes and looking happy doing it. It felt good for him to be your quarterback. But the NFL is not insane like the NBA — it is about discipline, and success, and almost never failure — and so Tebowmania may end with a less-hard thud than Linsanity, and end just the same.

There is the talk — always the talk — that Tebow should go to Jacksonville because he played his high-school and college ball in Florida, and anyway they feel good about him there already. The Jaguars can't fill the stands, and there is the hope that Tebow would help. (Certainly, he would. Help he can do.) Or else he might be a backup somewhere, anywhere, where they can sell his jersey and watch him warm up happily, and maybe he'll complete better than 46 percent of his passes if he keeps working so hard at it.

But who are we kidding?

Not John Elway, certainly. Nobody wants to be remembered as the man behind a quasi-religious, failing movement — not in sports anyway. (Leave the rest up to Rick Santorum.) Sure, Tebow might get better — anybody can get better, if they want to — but Elway understands that, in the meritocracy of this league, all the other stuff is just marketing.

And so Peyton Manning's signing with the Broncos means, more than likely, the end of Tim Tebow, NFL starting quarterback. He was our trending topic, bigger than reality, an idea more than a player. And that was the last thing John Elway told me that bad night from the middle of Tim Tebow's last center stage: "It's about the players."